When it comes to patent trolls, no one is bigger than Intellectual Ventures. The Washington State-based behemoth is at the center of both patent trolling and the debate around patent reform. Though it claims to promote innovation, Intellectual Ventures is behind some of the most outrageous troll campaigns in recent years.

In a decision that could help other victims of abusive patent litigation, a court today ordered that Garfum.com Corporation must pay an EFF client’s attorneys’ fees. The court found that Garfum’s patent suit lacked merit and was litigated unreasonably.

The public has a First Amendment right to access court records, and that right is generally only curtailed when there is “good cause” to do so. Unfortunately, when it comes to patent cases, courts routinely allow [PDF] parties to file entire documents under seal, without any public-redacted version being made available.

Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

When you pay for federally funded research, you should be allowed to read it. That’s the simple premise of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (S.779, H.R.1477), which was just passed out of a major Senate committee.

A “notice” slapped on the outside of a package saying “single use only” continues to ensure a manufacturer selling you the product can sue for patent infringement should someone dare reuse its goods. This is what the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Friday, reaffirming its previous case law, despite intervening Supreme Court law and compelling arguments against its earlier case law.

The issue is one of “patent exhaustion.” This is the patent law version of “first sale,” the doctrine in copyright law that says that once a consumer buys a copy of a work, she owns it, and can do what she wants with that copy. Patent law is similar. Once a patent owner sells a product, it cannot later claim its use is infringing.